EF approves budget with 4.9% tax hike

It passed by a 5-3 margin Monday evening after two previous meetings were continued.

Meeting for the third time in the past week, the Elizabeth Forward school board passed its original budget proposal, with its original tax increase, by a 5-3 vote Monday evening.

The final tax increase is a 1.3893 mills, taking it to the Act 1 Index of 4.9%, according to Director of Finance and Operations Al Ragan. It’s projected to bring a little more than $1.1 million in new revenue.

The new millage rate is 29.7437 or $29.74 per $1,000 of assessed value. The budget sets expenditures at $53,986,732 and estimates total revenues at $54,024,157.

The budget was originally set to be considered last Wednesday, but that meeting was continued to Friday. A motion to approve the budget was voted down on Friday, so directors unanimously continued the meeting again until Monday.

Because Monday’s meeting was a continuation of last week’s session, public comment from residents was not permitted.

Today marks the deadline for school districts to adopt their final budgets, and district Solicitor Megan Turnbull has warned that the state Department of Education may intervene if it wasn’t done on time.

Turnbull, who had a replacement Monday, was absent, along with board member Megan Ferraro.

Directors Travis Stoffer and Rick Cummings started Monday’s meeting with a motion to reconsider a tax increase, and Director Scott Henry read a statement to the public.

Henry cited the need for board accountability and said the community and the administration need to know where the board stands.

“Any other budget that is presented in the alternative needs to be presented to this board with not just numbers, but actual impacts and costs,” Henry said. “We deserve as a board to see that complete budget with a clear vision of what is going to be sacrificed if we don’t go with the current budget that Mr. Ragan and Mr. (Superintendent Keith) Konyk and President (Jamie) Evans have presented to us.”

Passing a budget is not the end of fiscal responsibility, according to Henry, who proposed having just a finance committee without any other elements to monitor the district’s financial oversight, budget management and fiscal accountability.

He suggested the group should meet monthly, be livestreamed and open to the public, and finances should be discussed in real time.

Henry added that while the current budget with the tax increase is “unpopular,” it is a “responsible and necessary choice” of the district at this time because it honors the contract that teachers are asking for.

Elizabeth Forward Education Association president Erin Huwalt told the Mon Valley Independent Monday that they’ll meet again with district officials today in an attempt to reach a fair contract, and she hopes it will be their last bargaining session.

The newly approved budget also maintains buses, keeps the district financially solvent so it can make payroll and preserves administrative capacity, according to Henry.

“Without that, we face very structural and financial risk that can impact the district, that can impact the finances of this district and can impact our contracts,” Henry said. “We need to look long and hard at our administrative costs. I’m not disagreeing with that, but we need to do that methodically. We just don’t cut things willy nilly. We need to have a plan.”

Stoffer proposed an amendment to the motion, asking for a 2.9% increase instead, which would have been around 29.1767 mills or around $29.18 of assessed value.

That motion was rejected in a 6-2 vote, with Cummings, Ken Honick, Scott Henry, Thomas Sharkey, Keith Balint and Jamie Evans voting no, while Stoffer and Dan Novacek supported it.

A vote to put the original tax increase back on the agenda was approved by a 5-3 margin with Henry, Sharkey, Cummings, Balint and Evans voting yes and Honick, Stoffer and Novacek voting no.

The vote to approve the tax hike broke down the same way, and some members of the crowd booed after it was taken. A final vote to adopt the budget saw the same directors supporting and opposing it.

A Homestead Farmstead Exclusion, a property tax reduction program that lowers the taxable assessed value for select properties, passed unanimously.

“I just feel as though, while unpopular, 4.9% is not something that I take lightly,” Henry said. “The cost of everything these days is going up, and that is not a comfort to anybody in this room, but from my seat, it’s the responsible thing to do, and as a board director, I am torn with making sure we do things fiscally responsible and also we make sure our kids get the best quality education.”